


Lovely, Dark, and Deep

by LePetitMonstre



Series: Kink/Gore October 2018 [14]
Category: The Ritual (2017)
Genre: F/F, Goretober, Implied/Referenced Cheating, Kinktober, Minor Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-21
Updated: 2018-12-21
Packaged: 2019-09-24 08:13:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17097068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LePetitMonstre/pseuds/LePetitMonstre
Summary: Gore: Nightmares | Kink: MarkingModer wears the faces of desires and fears. Often both at once.





	Lovely, Dark, and Deep

**Author's Note:**

> I've decided to call this ship 'Doe Eyes' because I have a terrible and dark sense of humor. Title from a poem by Robert Frost.
> 
> Happy holidays to everyone! Blessed be your new year.

Anna had always been the type to go through the motions. Marry a man who loves you. Have kids. Be happy. In the last year her carefully constructed mirage of happiness had faltered. Her husband knew. Her children suspected, if only via her disinterest in the domestic bliss they had been raised to be accustomed to. 

She met a woman two months ago. At work. Her brown eyes made Anna think of 'doe eyes' because their sweet darkness enchanted her. Forcing her to remember old longings she has spent so long trying to forget. Every word she spoke was interesting. She slipped in the back door of Anna's carefully built facade. Loving her was just as effortless as everything else was complicated. 

Every time they said goodbye they lingered. Each waiting for the other to do what they couldn't. Shouldn't. Anna is married to a man. 

Anna books her family a flight and plans a hiking trip for Christmas break in an effort to remember why she chose this life. Hiking was an old favorite; nature always filled her with peace and gave any problem clarity. 

The woods were freezing and cold and her children never stopped complaining the second they left the lodge for the trail. The grey fog masking the beauty as they were able to perceive it. But the dew and pine trees felt to Anna like freedom. Her husband making poor attempts to keep the peace and failing. His own temper getting the better of him, as much at the kids as Anna's ability to ignore them. It was her job to manage them. Wasnt it? 

At night after the children were in their tents he came after her in angry whispers. Her apathy in the past months had not gone unnoticed. Her interest in the woods over her kids had not gone unnoticed. Why was she acting so distant? He was afraid she was going to leave him. Or worse, that she was already gone. 

"That's why I wanted us to go on this trip. We've all been so distant lately. I thought this would bring us together." 

"And yet you're still finding ways to escape." He stormed back to his tent. 

She stayed by the treeline, a little shaken at his words. Frozen like a deer in the headlights of a car. Wishing she had brought her own tent to avoid any semblance of crawling back to him. It wasn't until an animal, a large one, began to crack the branches along the forest floor that she admitted defeat. 

Midnight rain made a light pattering on her tent as she drifted off into sleep. 

She's home again. Heat radiates thru her hands from the coffee mug. The woman she might just love sits at her kitchen table. Smiling. Something is off, but Anna can't place it. 

She doesn't remember moving into the living room or sitting on the couch or the woman sitting in her lap. Her body a pleasant weight. It's only when their noses are nearly touching that Anna finally recognizes what is wrong. Those dark eyes are now silver glass. 

Yet she never gets the chance to think about it too hard, as their lips are pressed together. It is not so different from kissing her husband when they were first married, but the lips are softer and fuller. Anna thinks those details make all the difference. 

She sees other things like a flicker at the corner of her mind's eye - antlers, the forest, a world dark and dirty and green. This Somewhere feels close and it doesn't make sense but she can't focus on anything other than the woman atop her and all the ways she wishes she could rearrange her life around this moment. 

The front door creaks and the sound of her children's voices pour in. All their faces fall into surprise and on her husband is only raw betrayal. 

Her breath catches in her throat and she tries to push some respectable distance between them. But the woman is suddenly so much heavier. The hand once resting spread on Anna's chest has become arched like claws and the tips of the woman's fingers disappear into the skin and muscle over her ribs and above her left breast and it _burns_. 

Those soft lips and that warm breath brush the shell of her ear, voice shaking Anna's entire reality as it whispers, "Unloved." 

She wakes in a tent. A light rain tapping against a taut canvas. 

The burning on her chest worsens instead of fading with the dream. Blood is leaking thru her shirt. She pulls down the collar to see five marks in a circle. Each deep into her skin. She screams.

**Author's Note:**

> Please consider leaving a comment and/or kudos. It makes an author's life brighter to hear from readers. Let me know if you spot any mistakes. Constructive criticism is always welcome.


End file.
